How not to waste time? This question interests both men and women. I want to do so much. But by the evening it turns out that some of the cases are postponed until tomorrow. And so every day. - unclear. Everyone seems to have 24 hours in a day. So why do some succeed and others don't?
Why are we wasting time
Precious watches eat bad habits. There are five of them. To stop wasting time, try to get rid of them all.
Wrong thinking
How often do you use the expression "if" in your life? Probably every day. People tend to evaluate what happened from this position. Often the thoughts are too far from reality. Trying to build an ideal magical world, a person forgets about pressing matters. He steals time from himself.
Constant complaints about things beyond our control
It can be anything: rainy weather, a neighbor who started renovations on an early Saturday morning, the underdevelopment of the economy in the country. Please note, if you often complain and start on such topics, it's time to sound the alarm.
Complaints do not carry any. This is a waste of time, irritation and bad mood. Why not replace them with important and pleasant information?
Aimless disappearance on social media
It is difficult to argue with the fact that the Internet has become a part of everyone's life. Moreover, many are so immersed in the virtual world that they forget about reality.
In other cases, everything is not so scary, but there is a problem. Have you noticed how you wait for the next message, aimlessly looking for news or looking at photos? This takes hours.
Try to allocate no more than an hour a day for being on the Internet, for example, 30 minutes in the morning and in the evening. You are guaranteed to get a lot of free time.
The desire to do everything at once
Take care of several things at once and you will notice how quickly you will feel moral and physical fatigue. The human brain is able to control the execution of a small number of tasks. The ideal option is 1 task for a designated period of time. Otherwise, during the working day you will not do anything useful.
Lack of organization in things and affairs
Clutter at home or in the workplace takes a lot of time to clean up. A much more economical option is to take a few minutes every day to maintain order.
Organization is also needed in business. The lack of a routine or a clear plan of action is a direct road to a waste of time resources.
One day you will realize that it would be better to spend time on something more useful than social networks or watching TV shows. But the minutes can't be returned. Simple tips and tricks will help you avoid wasteful waste.
Plan your work day
Right now, take a diary or a regular notebook and draw up. So you can estimate the amount of work and distribute cases by importance. This frees up time for other tasks.
By the way, it helps in planning. According to her, cases should be divided into 4 groups:
- important, urgent (no more than 2);
- important but not urgent;
- unimportant, but requiring urgent implementation;
- non-urgent and unimportant, time-consuming.
Solve important, urgent and unpleasant tasks in the morning. In the evening you will not have the desire to fulfill them. Time, by the way, too. Therefore, they will be moved to the next day. And so in a circle.
Learning not to waste time helps. According to him, after 25 minutes of work, you need to take a 5-minute break. After completing 4 cycles, increase the break to 30 minutes. Thanks to this schedule, you will not have time to get bored.
Check your mail at a set time
Set aside a few minutes in the morning and evening to read your letters. This rule applies to everything related to the Internet. This includes social networks, computer games and correspondence.
Social networks deserve special attention. Has it ever happened that you went there for a minute, and left at least an hour later? And someone sits there all day long. This is 100% a waste of time.
If you can't beat your social media addiction on your own, block them on the devices you use. A week will pass and you will notice how much free time has appeared.
Also, unsubscribe from emails you don't need. They may have been made several years ago. But now you do not need this information. Leave only useful subscriptions.
Learn to Delegate
Choose the field of activity in which you understand best. Otherwise, waste a lot of time and effort. And the income will be small.
Delegate tasks in which you are weak to colleagues. So you save a lot of time that you can spend on doing what you really like. Plus, give other people the opportunity to earn money.
Limit time on tasks
Limit the time it takes to complete a task to a few hours. You will soon notice that you are working much faster.
Don't get distracted while you work. Try to do it quickly and efficiently.
Remember the 15 minute rule
It looks like this: after 15 minutes of painstaking and hard work, you will not want to quit it or be distracted by other things. And indeed it is. Think about how you start reading. The first pages rarely cause crazy interest. But as the story progresses, you dive deeper and deeper into the story.
The same is true with work. Try to focus on it for at least a short period of time, like 15 minutes. The result will exceed all expectations.
Keep track of wasted time
Take a blank sheet of paper and write down everything, even minor actions, throughout the day. Review them in the evening. You will no doubt be surprised how much time you have wasted. You will also see that some of the cases could be combined and systematized.
Learn to refuse
Remember the movie "Always Say Yes" starring Jim Carrey? His life can hardly be called successful. And all due to the fact that the constant companion of the hero was the word "no". When he learned to say yes, his life changed dramatically.
Imagine how your life would change if you Reliable people find it difficult to effectively spend time. They deal with other people's problems, listen to regular complaints and give advice. Sometimes forgetting that they themselves have more than enough problems.
Learn to say no. Before agreeing to any request, ask yourself a question. Ask if doing it will prevent you from coping with your planned activities.
Give yourself the right settings
"Whatever you call a yacht, that's how it will float." The famous phrase from the children's cartoon about the adventures of Captain Vrungel. You have no idea how applicable it is in adulthood. No wonder they say that the whole day depends on the mood.
Immediately after waking up, think about something good. Don't overburden yourself with thoughts of unresolved issues or upcoming negotiations. Do not pick up the phone, do not go to the Internet and social networks. Read a book, have a cup of coffee, think about the day ahead. Wish yourself a good mood and get to work.
Stop uselessly napping
Another option for not wasting time. You are probably familiar with the situation when the signal on the alarm clock is rearranged several times in the morning. What do you get from these activities? Nothing. This is a pointless waste of time. You will not spend these minutes sleeping, but will wait with your eyes closed for the next signal.
Train yourself to get up right away. It is better, after completing the morning procedures, to come to the office early. This way you can do a lot more things. And you may not have to take work home.
Get rid of useless apps
Don't make excuses. Remove everything that steals time from your phone, tablet and computer. Leave the most necessary programs. As an exception, install useful and brain-developing puzzles. They will help to cheer up and tune in to the working wave.
Distant work
Switch to remote work whenever possible. Working hours may increase. But these hours you will spend in comfortable conditions. In addition, you do not have to waste time traveling by public transport.
Many remote workers find it difficult to adjust to working from home. Here you need to understand that this is the same work as all the others. It requires organization and responsibility.
Don't overload your brain with information
Write down new ideas and important thoughts
The human brain is like a computer. It also has short term memory. But she is limited. When new information appears, the old is erased. As a result, you may forget something necessary and important.
Jot down ideas in a notebook that you will always have in mind. This will save a lot of time trying to remember them after a couple of months.
Don't think
On the one hand, strange advice. However, it is very efficient. Most often, the phrase “I think” indicates that a person is excited about something or is very worried. Do not do this. Don't waste time thinking about the possible bad and good consequences. Take action and only then evaluate the results. If you don't like them, look elsewhere.
Conclusion
How not to waste time? Everything is very simple. Determine what or who is stealing your precious minutes. Maybe it's the Internet, talking on the phone or watching TV shows. After analysis, allocate a certain number of minutes or hours for these activities. Dedicate everything else to more useful things. Plan your day in advance, share responsibilities, take small breaks. In a few days you will see that your life is changing for the better.
Faktrum examines each one in turn.
1. St. Augustine's theory of time
St. Augustine, a Christian philosopher, had peculiar ideas about time. First of all, he believed that time is not infinite. Time, according to him, was created by God, in addition, it is absolutely impossible to create something infinite.
When something stays in the past, it no longer has any properties of being, because it no longer exists
Augustine also believed that time actually exists only in our minds and depends only on how we interpret it. We can say that something lasts a long time or not too long, but Augustine argued that there is no real way to evaluate it objectively.
When something remains in the past, it no longer has any properties of being, because now it does not exist. And when we say that something "took too long" - it's because we remember this "something" in this way.
And since we measure time based only on how we remember it, therefore, it should exist only in our memory. As for the future, it does not yet exist, so it is impossible to measure it. There is only the present, so the only logical conclusion is that the concept of time lives exclusively in our heads.
2. Time topology
What does time look like? If you try to imagine it, would you imagine it as a straight line that never ends? Or maybe you think about something like a clock, the hands of which go round and round every day and every year?
Obviously there is no right answer, but there are some intriguing ideas associated with it.
Aristotle believed that time cannot exist as a line. At least it has no beginning and no end, despite the fact that there must be a time when everything began. And if you imagine the moment when it all began, then you have to mark the point up to this moment. And if the world ceases to exist, then another point will appear, after this moment.
It is also completely incomprehensible how many timelines can be. Can it be just one line of time directed forward, or are there many of these lines, they are directed parallel to each other, or vice versa - intersect? Can time be one line divided into many segments? Could it be that the moments in the flow of time exist completely independently of each other? There are many opinions about all this. And not a single answer.
3. Believable present
The idea of a "plausible present" attempts to answer the question of how long this present lasts. The usual response associated with this is "now", but it's not very informative.
Suppose, when in the course of a conversation we reach the middle of a sentence, does this mean that we have already finished the beginning of the sentence, and it is in the past? And the conversation itself - is it in the present tense? Or is there only a part of the conversation in the present, and part of it is already in the past?
E. R. Clay and William James came up with the idea of a "plausible present" - a span of time that we experience as the present. According to Clay and James, this moment only lasts a few seconds and cannot last longer than a minute, which is the amount of time we are consciously aware of.
But even within these limits there is something to argue about.
Theoretically, all of the above can be associated with a person's short-term memory - the better this memory, the longer the present. Still there is an opinion that all this is just a matter of instantaneous perception. And once you rely on your short-term memory, that moment can no longer be part of the present. That is, there is the problem of the "plausible present", and something like the "extended present" that occurs immediately after the "plausible present" has disappeared.
In fact, the present should not have a duration at all, because if it does, a part of the present immediately appears in the past, and a part in the future, and a contradiction arises. And the "plausible present" tries to explain the present as a certain long interval of time, and this is very controversial.
4. Short people perceive "now" before tall people.
It sounds weird, but it makes sense. This theory was put forward by neuroscientist David Eagleman, and he called it "time binding".
All this is based on the idea that we perceive the world by receiving certain information packets that are collected by our senses and then processed by the brain. Information from different parts of the body reaches the brain at different times. Let's say you're walking, texting someone as you go, and you suddenly hit your head on a telegraph pole. At the same time, you injure your big toe on the same pillar. In theory, information about a head injury should enter your brain faster than information about a big toe injury. However, you will think that you felt it all at the same time.
And all because the brain is a kind of sensory structure with a clear organization. And this structure arranges things for us in ascending order of their meaning.
The delay in information processing mentioned above plays into the hands of short people. Because a short person feels a more accurate version of time, since in his case the information takes less time to get into the brain.
5. Time is slowing down and we can see it
One of the longstanding problems of physics is related to the existence of dark energy. We can see the effects of this energy, but we have no idea what it is.
A team of professors from Spain believe that all efforts to search for dark energy were in vain simply because it does not exist. They believe that all of the effects of dark energy can be explained by the alternative idea that we are actually seeing time slow down before it might stop.
Take the astronomical phenomenon known as "redshift". When we see stars glowing red, we know they are accelerating. A group of Spanish professors explains the phenomenon of the acceleration of the Universe not as a result of the presence of dark energy in it, but as an illusion created by time dilation.
The light has enough time to reach us. And when it finally does, time slows down, giving the illusion that everything is speeding up. Time stops extremely, unimaginably slowly, but given the vastness of outer space and its mind-boggling distances, it turns out that we can see how time slows down just by looking at the stars.
6. Time doesn't exist
There is also an opinion that time does not exist at all. This is what the philosopher J.M.E. McTaggart argued at the beginning of the last century. According to McTaggart, when considering time, two approaches are admissible.
The first approach is called A-Theory.
It says that time has a certain order and flows continuously, that things in it are organized as we see them. And that events move from the past to the present and then to the future.
B-Theory, on the contrary, argues that the acceptance of time frames and time itself is an illusion, and there is no way to make all events in the world happen in a strictly defined order.
This version of "time" is maintained only by our memories, and in our memory, as a rule, individual events are recorded, and we remember them as separate "time pockets", and not as some kind of continuous stream.
Given this theory, it can be proved that time does not exist, since in order for time to exist, a continuous change in events, the world and circumstances is required. B-theory, by definition, does not refer to the passage of time, and there is no question of changes there either. Thus, time does not exist.
However, if the A-Theory is correct, then the claim that there is no time seems too hasty. For example, let's take the day you turn 21. On the one hand, this day was once in the future. On the other hand, the same day will someday be in the past. But one and the same moment cannot be simultaneously in the past, and in the present and in the future. That is why McTaggart says that A-Theory is contradictory, and therefore impossible, like time itself.
7. Theory of four dimensions and the block of the Universe
The theory of four dimensions and the block of the Universe is connected with the idea of time as a real dimension. There is a version that all objects exist in four dimensions, not three. The fourth dimension is time.
And in it, objects can also be considered in terms of their three dimensions, that is, three dimensions. The theory of the block of the Universe represents the entire Universe as a block of measurements separated by "layers" of time.
This block has a length, width and height, and for everything in this block, for each event, there are certain layers of time. Each person is a four-dimensional object that exists in different layers of time. There is a layer of time for infancy, there is a layer for childhood, for adolescence, and so on.
Thus, the time layer has no past, present or future. However, each point within a block of the Universe can be either past, present, or future in relation to other points in time in this block.
8. Time dilation effect
Sometimes we hear stories of people who find themselves in a life-threatening or terrible situation. And these people swear that time slows down in such situations. Such a slowdown is often felt during events that defy explanation or events that happen suddenly. This is a common phenomenon and has already been the subject of much discussion about what we really experience.
The researchers decided to find out what would happen if time really slowed down. For example, we would be able to see many things better because our brain has a bad habit of mixing similar stimuli into one common event if the interval between stimuli is less than 80 milliseconds.
One experiment was carried out.
The subjects were asked to look at the numbers that were blinking and constantly changing. So scientists wanted to determine the point at which the brain stops paying attention to time and a person begins to distinguish between different series of numbers.
At first, the experiment was carried out under normal conditions, and then they decided to repeat it under extreme conditions: the participants were asked to look at a series of flashing numbers while falling from a tower 46 m high.
They were then asked to watch other people fall from the same tower and rate how long those falls were compared to their own.
The subject's own fall seemed 36% longer. In addition, in an extreme situation, people were better at identifying flashing numbers. And all this suggests that it is not some moment of time that is slowing down for us, but our memory of this moment is slowing down.
And while the practical benefits of the time dilation effect may be surprising, we should not forget that the same effect may well make terrible events in our memory last forever.
9. Chronos, Kronos and Time
Even before the attempts of Greek philosophers to explain time, time had a mythological explanation.
Before the beginning of time, there were only primordial gods - Chronos and Ananke. Chronos was the god of time, and was part man, part lion and part bull.
Ananke was a serpent coiled around the egg of the world and a symbol of eternity. Even Chronos in Greco-Roman mythology is often depicted as standing in the zodiac circle, where he is depicted as a man, and this man can be both young and old.
Chronos was the father of the Titans and is often confused with Kronos, who was also associated with time. It was Kronos who dethroned and then castrated his own father, and was later killed by his own son, Zeus.
Chronos was the one who was responsible for the change of seasons and for the passage of time in general. But for the things that happen to men and women during this time, it was not Chronos who was responsible, but someone else.
The life cycle of a person, his birth, growing up, aging and death, was the responsibility of those who were called the goddesses of fate - Moira. Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis determined human destiny, and finally, Atropos cut the thread, and the life of a person ended there.
10. We don't measure time well.
When it comes to the physics of space, time, dimensions, and everything that comes with them, time is perhaps the most difficult to explain.
We're not really good at measuring time.
On the one hand, there is sidereal time, that is, time measured using the position of the stars and the rotation of the Earth. It is obvious that although this time varies, it is very insignificant.
However, in the 20th century, astronomers found that the rotation of the planet was slowing down, so another scale was created - ephemeris time.
Even later, the so-called topocentric time (TDT) appeared, which was considered the most accurate, since it was based on international atomic time (IAT). In 1991, atomic time was renamed Earth time (TT). And if tracking time zones today may seem difficult to someone, then we should not forget that even today the position of stars and other celestial bodies is used in combination with Earth time, since this is how its maximum accuracy is achieved.
All this says only one thing: we still have no idea what to do with time, despite the fact that we live by it every day.
The biggest unsolved mysteries of the human body
9. The faster we move, the slower time passes.
The faster you move, the slower time goes. According to the laws of physics, you will age more slowly if you travel very fast. If you were to fly from Earth to the star Sirius at 99% the speed of light and then return back, you would be 2.5 years older when you arrived, but people on Earth would be 17 years older.
10. The universe is so old that on a cosmic scale, a very short time has passed since the appearance of man on Earth.
The universe is 13.8 billion years old. If we compressed this period of time into an interval equal to one year, that is, if the Big Bang occurred at 00:00:01 on January 1, then already on December 29 at 00:00:01 of the same year, the dinosaurs would have become extinct, in the same day at 23:54 pm. Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic and discovered America a second before midnight of the same day.
11. The Most Accurate Clock Ever Made Is a Strontium Battery Clock
Their accuracy is 6.4 * 10-18. This clock is able to accurately determine the time for 5 billion years. For comparison, atomic clocks can work accurately for 300 million years.
12. The oldest known object in the universe is a galaxy called z8_GND_5296
It is 13.1 billion years old, only about 700 million years younger than the universe itself.
13. The oldest known object on Earth is a 4.4 billion year old crystal, zircon, which was found in Jack Hills in Western Australia. This is only 160 million years younger than Earth itself.
14. Why the world decided to use the same time in different cities
The reason clocks show the same time in all countries is because it makes it easier to schedule trains. Until the 19th century, cities set their clocks to local noon, so Bristol's clocks could be up to 11 minutes behind those in London at that time. This meant that people continued to miss their trains, which is why railway companies began using London Standard Time in Britain starting with the launch of the Great Western Railway in 1840.
15. Do you know that time can stop?
Time can be stopped. distant galaxies move faster than nearby ones. Astrophysicists believe that the universe is accelerating as its constant expansion increases. There is a theory that explains this mysterious force in the universe known as "dark energy". But a Spanish physicist has proposed an alternative theory: he believes that more distant, older galaxies moving faster than the next, because in the past time was running faster. If he is right, then in a few billion years "everything will be frozen like a snapshot, forever."
16. We waste too much time sleeping.
If a person sleeps an average of 8 hours per night, they will sleep about 229,961 hours during their lifetime (which is about 1/3 of their entire life).
17. How do you know how far a thunderstorm is from you?
Counting the seconds between the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder can tell you how far away the storm actually is: a delay of three seconds means the storm is raging about a kilometer away from you. This is possible due to the delay in the sound that is generated from a lightning strike. That is why we always see the flash of lightning first and then hear the roll of thunder. This is especially noticeable when the thunderstorm is several kilometers away from us.
18. 75 hamburgers per second
McDonalds sells approximately 375 hamburgers worldwide every five seconds. That is, every second, 75 hamburgers.
19. 2.5 billion hits in a lifetime
By the time you're 70, your heart will have beaten more than 2.5 billion times. On average, the heart pumps 30 liters of blood into your body every 60 seconds and beats over 100,000 times a day.
20. Spend the seconds of your life wisely
There are 31,556,926 seconds in a year.
Delays in software releases are a common problem that no project is immune to. The reasons for this phenomenon lie in a variety of unforeseen situations related to the activities of customers, developers or testers. Fortunately, this problem, like most others, can be prevented.
In this article I will consider the issue of allocating enough time to conduct tests. Practice shows that it is at this step of creating a product that time is often saved ("there is only something to test for half an hour - and that's it"). In order to understand why it is important for us to allocate enough time for testing, let's take a closer look at exactly what factors can lead to missed deadlines.
What is "sufficient time" and how to calculate it?
1. Definition
So, what is meant by "sufficient time", and how is "sufficient time" different from "nominal"? "Nominal time" is spent working under ideal conditions (without unforeseen situations). But does this happen in practice?
For example, for installing a computer game or program, the accompanying software specification lists the nominal and recommended (sufficient) specifications of the PC. You should not expect high performance from a product if the technical parameters of the computer are close to the nominal requirements. That is why the recommended (sufficient) parameters for software installation always exceed the nominal ones.
In our case, “sufficient time” is the time that is guaranteed to be enough to complete the tasks, even in the event of unforeseen problems. In this article I will give real examples from my practice of working on two projects. I will designate one of them as “Hotel”, and the other as “Utility”.
2. Calculation
To determine the need for time and minimize its shortage, I suggest using the Ishikawa diagram. It is simple and clear, with its help you can visually facilitate the analysis of the reasons that lead to a lack of time for testing. The diagram itself is used to determine the causes of problems, but in our case it will help to simply and clearly systematize all the potential causes leading to missed deadlines, as well as identify their compensators.
For simplicity and clarity, the diagram I use for demonstration will be very brief. For your task, it will "bristle" and create a good base for calculations, as in the illustration below.
So, let's set an action plan using this diagram:
- We draw the backbone of the diagram.
- With the help of brainstorming, we find the reasons that lead to lack of time.
- We group the causes by factors and display them on a diagram.
- We are brainstorming again, already having a diagram in front of our eyes that helps to think in a given direction (perhaps this time there will not be as many ideas as in the first assault, but they will acquire some order).
- Considering the problems found, we find ways to level them. We add these solutions to the diagram.
- We are finishing work on drawing the diagram.
- We carry out an assessment of temporary risks, taking into account the problems found (that is, we put down the time that this or that problem can take).
- We calculate sufficient time, which takes into account all possible risks on the project.
Let's analyze this sequence with an example. Let's draw the backbone of the diagram:
Does it look like a fish? Actually, they call it "fish". "Spine" - this is the nominal time. It is direct, nothing interferes with it in ideal conditions. Next, enter the time that will be enough for without taking into account risks. For example, let's estimate it at 640 man-hours per month (conditionally, we will test the product for a month).
After creating the basis of the diagram, we will brainstorm and analyze the problems.
Problem types
There are many problems that lead to missed deadlines. Some of them occur extremely rarely, while others are found in almost every project. Based on personal experience, I divided all problems into 4 types:
- technical;
- social;
- mental;
- force majeure.
Technical problems
So, the first "bone" of our diagram will be the technical factor:
The most typical technical problems are server crashes or an unexpected internet/electricity shutdown for a tester (this is not so critical when there are many testers). Who is to blame and what should be done? Finding the culprit won't help the case. If the server on which the project “hangs” has “fallen”, then the work stops completely. How long? If the server is controlled by the customer / developer, then everything is not so scary. But if it belongs to a third-party hoster...
Case study: "Utility", server problem.
Initially, the project had enough available facilities and test benches, but the customer received a specific task that required contacting a third-party provider in order to obtain the necessary stands. The provider-hoster was found, the information necessary for the configuration of the environment was transferred, the deadlines were indicated. Suddenly, the hoster began to "feed breakfast", violating the preliminary agreements.
Fortunately, the customer was loyal, and we were able to change the deadlines, but when gaining access to the stands, a number of problems emerged that complicated testing:
- access to the hoster's servers was lost (due to the work that he carried out);
- errors occurred while working with the server;
- the hoster's server "fell", and it took a day or even two to eliminate the causes of the accident.
Time passed, deadlines were running out, work was stalled ... Other options were feverishly searched, BUT TIME WAS LOST! As a result, the customer chose to refuse our services without a detailed explanation of the reasons. And this is understandable: in the end, it was we, as the performers of the work, who assumed the possible risks and had to take them into account when preparing and performing the simple task of organizing stands for testing.
It must be remembered that technical problems in the field of IT are not uncommon, they occur on one scale or another. And if we insure ourselves in everyday matters (for example, setting aside funds for unforeseen expenses), then the risk of a probable equipment failure must be taken into account. Problems with the server may arise when testing both the site and the software (if the software interacts with the server during its operation). Therefore, it is necessary to foresee a margin of time, taking into account downtime, during which the system administrator will restore the server's performance. I will consider the issue of PC breakdowns of the tester himself a little later.
In our Ishikawa diagram, the "Technical" factor contains risks:
- problem on the server side;
- the problem is on the tester's side.
Clicking on the image will open the full version.
- We take into account information about the operation of the server, that is, its uptime (for example, 98%).
- We allocate the time required to restore the server's performance. Based on my experience, the maximum time is 5 hours (taking into account the attempt to restore work, installing a backup server on a new machine, reconfiguring, loading a saved copy).
- We take into account the time (based on personal experience) that is required to restore the performance of the tester (if he works remotely) - from 1 to 4 hours.
- We determine ways that will help to partially or completely mitigate the effect of the problems that have arisen, and allocate time for their implementation.
So let's refine the list:
- downtime (downtime) of the server on the project according to the collected average statistical data - 15 hours a day (assume that all downtime falls on working hours);
- server emergency recovery - maximum 5 hours;
- resuming the work of a tester, taking into account the average number of employees with whom this happens (2 people), - 2 * 4 = 8 hours per month;
- the possibility of attracting (if necessary) workers from other projects - presumably 6 man-hours.
Clicking on the image will open the full version.
The diagram shows the degree of risks and the possibility of their compensation. According to Murphy's Law, you need to prepare for the worst:
- all negative cases can take place;
- they cannot be compensated.
In the diagram, we indicate the risks of losing time in red, and possible compensation in green:
Clicking on the image will open the full version.
Social problems
The factor of social problems manifests itself quite often, but for some reason it is often ignored when planning work time. These problems are difficult to calculate compensation, but you need to provide for their presence in any case: after all, for example, a tester can get sick, go on vacation, quit, or even die.
Of course, an experienced PM already provides in advance options for replacing people in one case or another. But, for example, by entrusting Petya with the work of his colleague Vasya, who unexpectedly dropped out of the project, he is unlikely to be able to make Petya work 16 hours a day. Even if this succeeds, most likely, Petya will have to be replaced by another tester very soon (unless, of course, someone expresses a desire to fulfill the duties of three people and work 24 hours a day). Therefore, it must be taken into account that even with the replacement of people, testing slows down.
You can, of course, ask someone to reschedule a legal vacation (although this is quite difficult, especially when it comes to family employees). But if an employee falls ill or quits, you will have to sacrifice the time allotted for testing - bringing another employee into the project will not immediately help stabilize the situation, since he needs to get in the know. And if death and dismissal are relatively rare cases, then vacations, and especially the illness of an employee or family circumstances, are common occurrences.
Case studies: "Hotel", dismissal of employees.
Within a few months, the PM (from the customer side), the lead tester and the development team (third party) left the project for a number of reasons.
The Jira bug tracking system, which was also used as a project management system, was deployed on the development team's server. After the departure of this team from the project, we had to face a number of problems. We were left without bugs and created tasks. In a hurry, I had to select convenient bug tracking and documentation systems for use. At the same time, I had to file newly found bugs in our company's bug tracker, and after installing the required system at the customer's, I transferred all the already filed bug reports to him. In addition, I started new bug reports and restored the "lost" ones, as well as regressed the corrected ones.
In conditions of constant time pressure, we still met the deadlines. Conclusions were drawn from this episode, and now such situations will only become an unfortunate nuisance, but will not bring significant problems.
Case study: "Utility", illness, vacation, leaving the project.
At first, an interesting project developed well, the work went smoothly ... In July, one of the testers left the project, the team was reduced to 3 employees (including TM). In late July - early August, I first fell ill for 2 weeks, and then went on a two-week vacation. The day after my return, TM went on vacation, and then fell ill (for a month in total). I had to replace it, but it didn't work too well.
Total: 8 weeks of team work, theoretically consisting of three people, but practically - of two. Real story. At the same time, the customer should not care who and what is ill or how long he goes on vacation. Responsibility for compliance with the stated deadlines lies with us.
It was useful that our TM took a good margin of time to complete the tasks, and used complex rich tables for calculating risks and time. There is no getting around here: either we correctly take into account the risks, or we will overtime, so as not to miss the deadline somehow. The calculation is always useful: if we ask for an unreasonably long time, the customer can find someone “quickly”, if too little, we are likely to punish ourselves. From the experience of other firms, I have heard about other problems. For example, an employee could simply leave for a better job without warning, without worrying about the work book, or an employee could be fired with a bang for various reasons.
Almost all of the cases mentioned (except for holidays) are impossible to predict, but they all lead to a violation of the normal mode of operation. Therefore, they must be foreseen (taking into account one's own or someone else's experience), and a certain amount of time should be allocated to eradicate negative consequences.
To take into account such risks, we take personal average statistical data on the following issues:
- how much time it takes to introduce a new employee to the project (for example, 6 hours);
- how much time the employee spends on sick leave (for example, 4 days);
- how many employees go on sick leave (6% of the total in winter);
- how many people go on vacation (most often in the summer);
- average number of vacation days (for example, from 7 to 14 calendar days);
- how many hours are spent helping colleagues from another project where the situation is more critical (for example, 2-4 working days).
If we do not take into account something, someone will have to work at night, and someone will “burn the earth under their feet.”
Calculate the risks associated with the disease. According to statistics, in a team of 4 people, 1 person gets sick per month (4 * 6% rounded up), he needs to be replaced, we get:
Now consider the case of employee leave. Suppose, on average, according to the calendar, a vacation lasts 2 weeks. Replacing the vacationer with another worker will incur the same 6 hours of cost. We also take into account that at the same time we will have to help colleagues on another project, spending 4 working days. The total for all risks is 6 hours + 6 hours + 32 hours = 48 hours.
As a result, we get the following state of the diagram:
Clicking on the image will open the full version.
I do not consider such critical cases as the dismissal or death of an employee, so as not to overload the article with complex calculations (you have to look for a new employee in the project on an ongoing basis). It is up to you whether or not to take into account such accidents, but in the correct calculation we must take into account all more or less realistic incidents.
The diagram shows that we have run 170 "red" hours. And don't be fooled by the "green" amount: it shows how much we can compensate for risks over time in the ideal case. In real practice, there may not be compensation, so we must count on the worst case and be prepared for it.
mental problems
In this section, I will highlight two main problems that arise when working with testers and/or TMs:
- misunderstanding or misunderstanding of TK;
- overestimation of one's strengths.
Example from practice: "Hotel", TK and reassessment of one's strengths.
The task was to test a new functionality - a pricing calculation matrix taking into account seasons, discounts and interest payments for two types of contracts. There was a technical specification, deadlines and a stand. Already at the beginning of the work, problems became obvious:
- The TOR for testers was written incomprehensibly;
- The TOR for the developer was somewhere on Dropbox, in some folder with a confusing attachment (the author was no longer in the team, other employees were poorly versed in this, and the question “how did you work then?” hung in the air);
- the implementer of the task itself disappeared somewhere, it was not possible to obtain intelligible information about it and about the TK.
We all know that tasks should be extremely clearly described and correctly set, and then the tester will just have to do his job. In this case, the picture was different, but the customer needed a result, not a debriefing. I had to apply the reverse engineering method to find out how everything works and what formulas are involved. As a result, we figured out the problem and compiled a calculator in Google Sheets to calculate the final price. True, it took a lot of time.
The second case was not so much about testing, but about writing documentation. By mutual agreement between the customer and us, the task was to put the TOR in order in order to have at hand detailed requirements that can be shown to others if necessary. I announced to the customer the deadline for completing the work - 3 weeks, which eventually stretched for 6 weeks. I miscalculated 100%, overestimating my strength and having no experience in such calculations. Fortunately, this had no consequences, as there were development delays on the project. Nobody touched me, and I calmly completed my task.
Yes, we cannot always objectively assess our strengths and determine realistic deadlines. A mistake up is not a problem, but if a mistake is down, someone will have to make up for lost days. It will be a big success if you manage to catch up with them. Well, if not?
How to calculate the required time and take into account the experience for the future
I will not enter specific calculations for this type of risk in the diagram, since I did not consider typical cases. This does not mean that they do not exist - it is simply difficult to foresee the time spent on them. Each incident is unique in its own way and can “steal” a different time: from 0.5 hours to 7 hours of work (the last figure is taken from a real case, when after 7 hours of work TM realized that it had given employees the wrong version of the product for testing).
If it is impossible to carry out an accurate calculation, I advise you to increase the nominal time by 10-15%. Of course, it is not a fact that the introduced increase is enough, but, as practice shows, such a buffer is optimal: it is still better than not taking into account risks at all (see the diagram in the next subsection).
Force majeure
Here I include the rest of the problems that, when considering all known risks, are not taken into account simply because they cannot be imagined.
Case study: "Hotel", excessive accounting.
On the Hotel project, I had a table that took into account the average number of bugs, the time spent on finding and reporting them, and the time spent on making changes to the checklists. Thanks to this table, it was possible to foresee how long it might take to test a particular functionality, new or already implemented, but updated. Everything would be fine, but there were days when there were 25 (plus or minus 2-3) reports. Based on a number of circumstances, it was necessary to regress all errors, not forgetting about testing new functionality and other equally priority tasks. The deadlines were shifted, since it was physically difficult to process this entire array at the agreed time.
Deadlines are deadlines, and if they are not met, other employees must be involved. The project must be submitted on time. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the time again, by analogy with the situation of illness / dismissal of the tester. Too much accounting? But it is unlikely that you will prefer "frantic pace of work before the deadline."
According to established practice, to account for unforeseen cases, it is recommended to lay down from 10-15% to 30% of the originally planned time. As a result, our diagram will look like this:
Clicking on the image will open the full version.
Looks difficult? Yes, but experience will soon allow you to determine the required amount of time almost on an intuitive level (although, of course, you should not abandon the calculations). You will say that “others do not do this “nonsense” and they are “everything is OK”? I can cite as an example completely different cases when ignoring this "nonsense" led to sad consequences.
According to the resulting diagram, there is a risk of a shortage of 362 working hours. Even if we manage to compensate for the risks, we still need to take into account the additional 256 hours. We will add the resulting time buffer (256-362 hours in our example) to the total duration of the project, and not to its parts, as Lawrence Leach advises in the book “On time and within budget. Project management according to the critical chain method, because:
- in any case, we need to give the customer a total deadline for completing the task (he is not interested in which part will be completed in what time);
- it is difficult to calculate exactly how much time you need to add to one or another part of the project. The Gantt chart (namely, it is used in such cases) almost always fails when planning (Jeff Sutherland, "Scrum. The art of doing twice the work in half the time", Crown Business, New York), and therefore it will be enough just to take into account the buffer , rather than distributing it between parts of the project.
Conclusion
Let's summarize. Perhaps, earlier it seemed to us that any problems that arise during testing can be solved in two or three days, only slightly exceeding the stated deadlines. Now, after reading the article and looking at the diagram, you can see that the planned time deficit reaches significant values (in our case - more than 56%), even when taking into account only the most typical cases.
This figure is confirmed by repeated observations: in many cases, you have to add 50-100% to the planned time - see "Risk Management in High-Tech Projects: Status and Management Approaches" (M.D. Godlevsky, A.A. Polyakov) . But even these percentages, as I said, are just averages, so sufficient time must be calculated for each specific project.
Yes, we may have a certain amount of time for compensation (in our example - 106 hours), but it is not always possible to use it. If we prepare for the shortage of time without taking into account compensation, then the presence of compensation in one volume or another will be a pleasant bonus for us. But without taking into account all the risk factors and not allocating enough time to conduct tests, we are very likely to get a failed deadline.
To name just a few of the consequences of not meeting deadlines:
- payment of monetary compensation to the customer for failure to meet deadlines;
- loss of reputation (and in the field of IT, any information, especially negative, like an epidemic spreads through all available channels);
- loss of clients.
All these troubles can be avoided through a thorough analysis of all possible risks and a systematic calculation of sufficient time to test the project.
“The amount of time is fixed. When it is "enough" or "not enough" - these are our expectations that lead to this or that sensation. Leo Babauta explains what we do wrong every day.
The constant lack of time is the problem of millions. We have no time for everything: to live, make friends, relax, work, just look around. World-famous writer and psychologist Leo Babauta confidently declares : there is always enough time, you just need to know where to look for it. DK.RU chose the main thing from the expert's column.
We have a ton of tasks and projects, endless messages and emails to answer, and even if we're focused and undistracted (that's a huge "if")...there isn't enough time.
Let's say you happen to find time after work and on weekends to do something unrelated to work - reading, exercising, meditating, learning something new, hobbies ... Well, then you again find that time and there is always not enough for this: there is too much you want to do, but there is still not enough time.
And these are just the big things… In addition to all this, you need to eat, sleep, drive somewhere, take a shower or bath, watch TV, follow the news, do cleaning and other household chores, wash the car and pay bills, buy groceries and cook. , pay taxes. How do we cram all this into the small amount of time we have left to complete work and non-work tasks?
There's never enough time, and we're all sick of it. Why is that? What's the matter? And what the hell can you do about it?
Reason for lack of time
The amount of time is fixed. When it is "enough" or "not enough" - it's only our expectations that lead to this or that feeling.
If we want to do more than is possible in a fixed amount of time, we think that there is not enough time because it has not lived up to our expectations. If we are satisfied with how much we have done during this time, then we consider that it was enough.
In a word, these are just our expectations - how much needs to be done in a day.
Who imposes these expectations on us? Our leaders? Society? Parents? We ourselves? All of the above is true. The result is commitments about how much we need to get done, commitments that cannot be met in the limited amount of time we have.
We need to get rid of these erroneous commitments. To learn to appreciate the time we really have, to appreciate every action that we can perform during this time.
But ... but you need to do 10 times more. You may well object. But start with a week-long experiment:
Conduct a weekly experiment: make a to-do list, prioritize, allocate time for them on the calendar. After that, with discipline and focus, execute each block, doing exactly what you planned. If you find yourself forgetting to buy food or cook dinner, make changes. After just seven days, you will have a much better idea of how much you can actually do.
This is much less than you once dreamed of. We are too optimistic about how much we can get done in a day or a week.
As soon as we look at the situation optimistically, the actual number of things we can do in a week will decrease significantly. We need to start with this realistic confession.
How then to complete the tasks
First determine what needs to be done. What items on your to-do list need to be done no matter what? For example, you can list things like: shower, eat, sleep, buy groceries, cook, clean, wash clothes, drive to work, take the kids to school, etc. You may also have some non-negotiable work moments: meetings on Mondays, daily calls, etc. How long do they take? Calculate this as carefully as possible. It would be correct to count 8 hours of sleep, and then 4-7 hours of non-work duties (depending on whether you have family or other important obligations not related to work). And how many work tasks do you have left now?
Now determine how much time is left. Let's say you have 8 hours of sleep, 4 hours of important non-work activities and 1.5 hours of work ... and you have 10.5 hours left every day. Someone may have more obligatory tasks (both working and non-working), and then only 6 hours or even less will remain. Just calculate the exact amount.
Then ask yourself what is the best use of this time? You need to sort out your big pile of tasks and the things you want to do, then read and watch... what's the best use of that time? There is no right answer, just ask this question.
Appreciation and Focus
You still want to cram more into the limited time - that's our nature.
But we need to realize that this is due to a lack of appreciation for the time we have. It's enough. The time we have is a precious gift and we can appreciate it for what it is, we don't need more.
So the secret is to work and act with appreciation and focus. Appreciate the opportunities we have. There are not so many of them, they are precious and wonderful. Can you love them for who they are?
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